According to the news report, Stephanie played a good game, but ran out of lifelines during her attempt at taking a million dollars. She did not know that Brody Jenner’s father was an Olympic gold medalist in the decathalon, and rather than harbor a guess, she stopped play and took the money accumulated up to that point. Good move.

In the past few years of playing competitive team trivia in the Capital District, I’ve known of at least two people who made it onto one of those shows. Rich Volek, who played on the team “Wild Agbyanis,” got on Jeopardy! and had a respectable showing – he came in third place, and received a consolation check (I don’t think he got the customary case of Turtle Wax, the year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni, or the set of the World Book Encyclopaedia, but sometimes that’s how the chips fall).

The other person I know of that made it onto a nationally syndicated game show was Rich Mahady. “Trivia Rich,” who helped Lynch’s Mob win two Trivia Bowls, and then later joined Street Academy for a few months, got on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” during its early run, and did quite well for himself; I think he got as high as $32,000 before walking away.

The only other person who I recall made it big on these game shows and also had Capital District ties was Kate Waits, who I believe was an Albany Law professor and five-day champion on Jeopardy!, back about 15 or 20 years ago.

Anyways, congratulations Stephanie, don’t spend all that money on textbooks and tuition!